Grasser Production conducted an interview with vocalist Jesse Leach and guitarist Adam Dutkiewicz of Massachusetts metallers KILLSWITCH ENGAGE prior to their November 10 at Löwensaal in Nürnberg, Germany. You can watch the entire chat below. A few excerpts follow (transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET). On the songwriting process for their latest studio album, "Atonement": Adam: "It was a lot tougher this time. It took about two years. We started writing two years before we recorded it. We ran into problem after problem, and opportunities, so it kept dragging on." Jesse: "My life fell apart. Then I also had to get vocal surgery. There’s a lot going on. Touring with IRON MAIDEN was nuts." Adam: "You can’t say no to MAIDEN." Jesse: "It was amazing. It was tough. Mostly for him." Adam: [Because of his role as producer] All of it." On whether Dutkiewicz would ever want someone else to produce a KILLSWITCH ENGAGE album: Adam: "I'd be fine with it. I love when things come together and it's a creative process and I love being spearheading and giving people direction and helping out and making things the best they can possibly be. It's very rewarding to see a song grow up. But when it refuses to grow up, then it becomes a problem." Jesse: "I think if nothing there's lessons learned" Adam: "I think when we do our next record, we'll do a lot of things differently. A lot of things." Jesse: "And I'm approaching my writing differently now with TIMES OF GRACE. Just in general it helps make me see the bigger picture of how songwriting and album processes should go. I think it was a blessing in disguise for me personally." On the status of the next TIMES OF GRACE album, the side project of Leach and Dutkiewicz: Adam: "We're working on it. We've got four more songs to record vocals on. Then I have a lot of guitar parts and bass parts to record. I'm thinking it will be done by early next year, and then maybe we'd release it in about a year. There's a lot that still needs to happen for all of that to be in motion." Jesse: "We're going to be smart with it." On why they think people are interested in a second TIMES OF GRACE album: Adam: "I have no idea. [Laughs]" Jesse: "Just an emotional connection." Adam: "It's definitely a project of passion and maybe people see that. Obviously, this is our freakin breadnand butter, KILLSWITCH ENGAGE. Not to say it's not our passion. We do TIMES OF GRACE just for the love of it, the love of music, doing something different, doing something a little bit more out of our shell. It's a lot of fun for us and we can experiment with different sounds and almost become different types of musicians." Jesse: "It's liberating. It really is what it is. And the lyrics, I take a different approach to that stuff. On this next one, there's a lot of real poetry, I'd say. There's a couple of [spoken-word parts]. I'm really stoked. Especially the last session we had, I'm really happy with the way it's coming out." "Atonement" was released in August via Metal Blade Records in the U.S. and Sony Music Entertainment in the rest of the world. The disc features guest appearances by KILLSWITCH's former lead singer Howard Jones and TESTAMENT frontman Chuck Billy. It marks the band's third full-length release since the return of Leach, who rejoined the group in 2012. TIMES OF GRACE's debut studio album, "The Hymn Of A Broken Man", was released in 2011 via Roadrunner.
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